I probably ate at Skyline once a week for almost 20 years. Not only did I never eat at another chili parlor, despite the many throughout town (and a fact that I should be embarrassed to admit in my willingness to try everything else), it never even occurred to me that I should.
An important note: people expecting a "real" chili are unfailingly disappointed. Think of it as a soft ragu or meat sauce. The spicing is also radically different, with an aroma of clove, cinnamon and chocolate dominating. Authentic recipes call for the beef to be boiled rather than browned and tenderized in vinegar for a characteristically mushy texture. I know, it's difficult to imagine how this could taste good, but stick with me. The chili is but one component of the whole, which works far better than it has any right to taste.
To be sure, this is not just a hard chili recipe to get exactly correct, the other ingredients are almost as tough, with the cheese being nearly impossible to replicate. A fluffy tangle of Big Bird yellow cheese forms a mountain over the chili and thoroughly cooked spaghetti, never clumping and only barely melting on the lowest layer touching the chili.
Finally, the proper dish is needed. See my picture below. The proper dish collects the copious chili juice, which provides a secondary yet crucial lubrication to the spaghetti. But the dish is also shaped so as to spread the juices and not concentrate them, like at the bottom of a bowl. I had no such dish.
Crash course: a 3 Way is spaghetti, chili and cheese. A 4 Way adds onions or beans and a 5 Way contains both. Top with liberal amounts of hot sauce and oyster crackers to achieve synergy.
